Cumulus (13 page)

“Can you give us the room?” Frederick’s voice was sonorous but surprisingly soft.

The woman looked like she was about to object, but then she and the dreadlocked man filed out the same door Lilly had entered through.

Lilly stepped down into the sunken area around the table. Frederick looked her up and down. Up close, she could see that his eyes were red-rimmed.

“Lilly Miyamoto,” he said. This was the second time in twenty-four hours that a stranger had cited her full name before they had been introduced. “Sara mentioned you a number of times. Among other things, she said you were the only one keeping her beloved Land Rover alive after all these years.”

Lilly remembered oil-soaked afternoons spent under the truck. “It’s a fine vehicle,” she said. “They built them to last and meant it.”

“Indeed. Sometimes I wonder whether I was built to last.”

Frederick eyed her for a long moment. Then he pressed his fingertips onto the table in front of him, forming a little cathedral of open space under each hand. His sigh was laced with pain.

“Duncan tells me,” he said, “that you have information pertaining to Sara’s murder. Specifically, that you claim to know the identity of the perpetrator.”

“I don’t know his name, and I didn’t see him shoot her,” said Lilly. “But when I arrived this morning to return the car, I saw him leaving through the back gate and followed him.” She lifted the camera from where it hung on its strap.

“And I have pictures.”

24

“LILLY, MEET HENOK ADDISU,
our resident public relations guru.”

Frederick nodded to a handsome spectacled man in front of a triptych of widescreen monitors. They were standing in a small section of the larger warehouse space that was immediately adjacent to Frederick’s closed conference room. “Before joining the team here, Henok was an investigative reporter, wrote a very popular blog, and did a whole bunch of other things I still don’t fully understand. Needless to say, he’s become an integral part of our little family. He is leading the, ah, intellectual side of our internal investigation into this morning’s homicide.”

Henok stood and shook Lilly’s hand.

“Lilly,” said Frederick, “is a photojournalist with key evidence relating to the case. I trust you will put your minds together and help figure out this mess.”

“I’m just a wedding photographer, really,” said Lilly.

Frederick raised an eyebrow. “That’s not how Sara described you, and I never knew her to be wrong about reading people.”

Lilly shrugged and tried to hide the pride and pain that rose within her.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “You do public relations?”

Frederick laid a hand on Henok’s shoulder. “All organizations are media organizations now,” said the younger man. “Nobody can afford not to consider what to say or how to say it. Your story defines your identity.”

“I don’t know media,” said Frederick, “but I know politics. And the former can make quite an impact on the latter.”

Lilly frowned. “What does any of this have to do with Sara?”

“We have reason to suspect that Sara’s murder may have been politically motivated,” said Frederick, something flashing behind his eyes. “And I believe in fighting fire with fire.” He nodded, as if something had been decided. “Well then, I will let you two get down to business. Lilly, I have already made a deposit to your account to cover any incidental expenses related to the investigation. If you require any additional resources, let me or Henok know immediately. With your help, justice will be served. Now, please excuse me. There is unrest to foment.”

Frederick adjusted his tuxedo jacket, turned away, and disappeared back into the conference center. Had he just deputized her?

Henok stared after him. “I’ve never seen him like that,” he said.

“Like what?” asked Lilly.

Henok shook his head slowly. “So emotional,” he said. “Sara must have meant a lot to him. I mean, she was obviously a legal adviser to him and they were, well, together. But still…”

Lilly didn’t know how to respond. Frederick had appeared supremely calm to her. Only the red around his eyes had hinted at the pain he must be feeling at the loss of his lover. Then again, this was the first time she’d met him. Maybe he wasn’t an easy man to read.

“Here.” Henok snipped off a tiny piece of duct tape from a roll on his desk.

“What’s this?” asked Lilly.

“Security precaution,” said Henok. “Paste it on your phone’s camera when you’re not using it. You never know who might be watching.” He held up his phone to display how it was done and then handed her a small plastic clip attached to a foam earplug. “This fits snugly over the microphone to muffle audio.” He shrugged.

Lilly obliged. “What did Frederick mean about the murder being politically motivated?”

Henok waved her over to his screens. “Check it out.”

Lilly walked around the desk and shuddered at what she saw. Ultra-high-definition images were scattered across all three displays in a complex mosaic. They had photographed every inch of Sara’s house and yard from every possible angle. Hundreds of images of the scene in the living room cycled through. They had even surveyed the inside of the Land Rover and pulled the latest satellite shots of the roof. Every object and detail was digitally tagged to notations in a separate window.

“The police collected all the evidence,” he said, “but Frederick talked to the detectives and we did a first pass before their forensics guys messed everything up. We don’t have any of the physical stuff, but we’ve logged everything digitally in pretty much every possible way.”

Lilly tried to suppress a sudden onset of nausea. She couldn’t believe she had parked the Land Rover in Sara’s driveway only this morning. The most pressing thing on her mind had been how to tell her friend about her misadventures. That seemed like some parallel universe now, a different person living a different life.

“This is where it gets interesting,” Henok said, indicating a grid of pictures of individual sheets of paper covered in text, some splattered with brownish dried blood. Lilly remembered the piles of paperwork on the coffee table in front of Sara’s body.

“Sara was working on a class-action lawsuit targeting Cumulus,” said Henok. “We knew that already. What we didn’t know was how good her case was. Frederick has another attorney going through everything line by line. But it’s clear that she had acquired damning evidence from a few disgruntled employees that would have put the company directly into the line of fire from
SEC
,
IRS
, and Justice. It would throw Wall Street into chaos. Given how much infrastructure Cumulus controls, it would be disruptive even at a local level. Plus, the
PR
fallout would be massive.”

Lilly tried to rein in her thoughts and bring herself back to the present. “So you think that Cumulus murdered her?” It seemed like a very, very long shot. It was a little too far-fetched to imagine a Silicon Valley tech company ordering an assassination. That was the stuff of conspiracy forums.

Henok gave her a sidelong glance, picking up on her tone. “We have no direct evidence of that,” he said, a little defensively. “But if you don’t know who’s responsible for the course of action, it’s good to start by identifying who has the most to gain from the results. Sara’s case relied on sources she hadn’t yet revealed. Her lawsuit died with her.”

“But what about Occam’s razor?” said Lilly. “It could have been a robbery gone wrong, or an ex, or someone she previously prosecuted getting revenge, or even an attempted rape, or maybe a nut got his hands on his first Glock and wanted to see if it worked.”

“Nothing was stolen, she wasn’t raped, and Frederick has people looking into her personal and professional background to filter for potential enemies,” said Henok. “But there’s no way we wouldn’t know if someone local did this. It wasn’t our guys. And our guys control those corners. That means this asshole wasn’t from Oakland. And if that’s true, then it was probably targeted.”

Lilly tapped her camera. “I’ve got shots of the asshole in question right here.”

Henok’s eyes widened. “Well, holy shit. What are you waiting for?” He held out a
USB
jack.

She shook her head. “It’s analog,” she said. “I need to develop them in my darkroom.”

“Seriously? I didn’t even realize they still made film.”

“You just have to know where to look.”

“How long will it take you to develop them?”

“I can do it this afternoon.”

“Good.” He pulled up a window filled with text. “I’m working up a blog post about the murder, and I want those shots.”

“A blog post? Why?”

“
Why
is Frederick’s department. I’m more of a
what
and
how
guy,” he said. “But if I were to hazard a guess, I’d imagine it has to do with grassroots populism. The protest and all that jazz.”

Since she’d entered this building, Lilly had felt like she was running three steps behind. “I’ve had one hell of a day,” she said. “So humor me and start at the beginning.”

Henok looked up. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “You get me those photos and I’ll catch you up.”

25

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!”
Martín stumbled backward and fell into a sitting position on the carpeted floor.

Graham smiled. It was almost too easy. It was incredible how much routine governed people’s lives. The truly miraculous part was that criminals didn’t take even more advantage of it than they already did.

Every single night Martín ate a late dinner with his wife and his twin boys, and then came out into the separate studio office in the backyard to catch up on whatever work he hadn’t been able to get done at the Tectonix office that day. Every single night. And with root access to the Cumulus network, Graham could simply scan back through time to see the records of his geolocation and recordings from every sensor on his phone and any networked device within range. Given that most devices were connected to Cumulus in one way or another, it gave him a godlike view of the entire history of pretty much anyone or anything he wanted to see. Even better, the Ghost Program rendered him digitally invisible to Cumulus’s ecosystem. His presence was automatically wiped clean from the system that recorded everyone else and that Security and law enforcement relied on. It was the ultimate operational carte blanche. Agency analysts could kiss his ass.

“No need to get upset, Martín.” Graham spun around in the office chair to face him. “I’m just here for a casual chat between friends.”

Martín pushed himself back a few meters like a crab and then rose to his feet.

“What the fuck are you doing in my house?” His pupils dilated.

“Well,” said Graham. “If we want to get technical, this is your office.” He raised his hands in mock concession. “But to address the spirit of your question, certainly we’re on good enough terms that you’d be more than happy to invite me into your home?”

“Good terms? Are you out of your goddamn mind?” He made a visible effort to get his breathing under control. He extended a hand to the wall to keep his balance.

“Oh, I can assure you that I am entirely sane,” said Graham. “But I appreciate your concern for my mental well-being.”

Martín’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. “Get the hell off of my property or I’m going to call Security.”

Graham raised his eyebrows. “So soon? But we have much to discuss.”

“We have
nothing
to discuss. I did everything you asked. I betrayed my team, my shareholders, and myself and turned down Huian’s outrageously rich acquisition offer for no good reason. Our deal is over. Done. Kaput.” Martín sliced the air with his hand to emphasize the point.

Graham smiled wanly. “Martín, Martín, Martín,” he said. “If only it were that simple. But our deal is very far from over. Really, you should be looking at this as the beginning of a long and fruitful partnership.” Graham nodded as if he had convinced himself of the argument’s veracity. “Yes, and a profitable one too. Why, just by your gracious accommodation of my request to turn them down, Cumulus doubled its acquisition offer. I’d say that has to be worth something. In fact, you should be thanking me.”

Muscles worked in Martín’s jaw. “The day I thank you for blackmailing me will be the day I kill you with my bare hands.”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Graham. “In the meantime, I think you will be quite keen on our next little collaboration.”

Martín just stared daggers at him.

“I can’t pretend to be an expert on technology companies,” said Graham. “But when I decided to make my foray into Silicon Valley, I did my best to learn the basics and read about the history of the industry. Jeff Bezos, the founder and former chief executive of Amazon, famously opined that people who were right a lot of the time were also people who often changed their minds. Strong views, weakly held. He valued flexibility over consistency of thought. He knew that the smartest people can accommodate contradiction and constantly challenge and refine their own point of view.”